The Hart Home │The Fastest Winter of My Life

As our family was sitting down to dinner today, my husband lamented about just jacking the heat up because he was tired of being cold. We bought this gorgeous house with two beautiful fireplaces thinking they would get us through winter, only by the time the chimney sweep came to clean them, we found out both need work before we can use them and gas for heating, is expensive. We have been drafty this winter, but next winter, we have a new game plan and I reminded him that March was already next Monday and we wouldn’t be using the heat that much longer anyway. So, stick on your sweater and your fuzzy socks because spring is almost here!

“Seriously? Wow. This was the fastest winter of my life,” he exclaimed.

And of mine too. We moved into our new house over Thanksgiving weekend and then it was suddenly Christmas, even though that really didn’t feel like Christmas either, I blinked again and here we are.

View of one of the lakes in our town. Courtesy of Google Images.

I am still virtually teaching and being a mom at the same time. I view this year at home as a blessing in that I got a whole year home with Logan and I have been home with Rory since he was born. I wouldn’t trade this time for anything, even on the difficult days where Logan is losing his mind and Rory is too. It’s hard to only ever be home with two little boys that want to explore and run and play.

I enrolled Logan in a toddler gymnastics class which he seems to just love, I wish we were able to go more than once a week. He loves getting to run around and play with other kids. Rory has entered the all about mom stage. He has to be with me at all times or the world is ending. It is the most flattering “I love you so much,” but also can be hard when I just want 20 minutes to myself to shower, or to read or blog or even just change the cat box.

I am supposed to be going back to in-person teaching in May and the thought actually makes me sick. I can not imagine the stress and the tears of having to adjust 8th graders, who are graduating in a month at that point, to being in school with masks on all day in a building with no AC after having been out of the physical building for more than a year. Oooof…is all I got. Compile that all with the thought of leaving my babies for the first time in over a year too, I don’t know. Part of me wishes I could just teach online until my kids are in school so I don’t miss anything, but I know that’s wishful thinking.

Recently, I have been focused on fixing up our new house. I started with the kitchen. As I get money together, I have been upgrading appliances, painted the cabinets and updated the knobs and have been slowly pealing off the popcorn ceiling. And for the record, we have it in EVERY. SINGLE. ROOM. Why was this such a fad? Now it’s old, crumbly and tacky looking in every room. It’s easy enough to get off, but I am limited to only working when both kids are napping so what would have taken me an afternoon when it was just Phil and I can now take me up to a week to get done, but I will get it done! I am determined to finish the kitchen this year. This summer, I know I will have to paint the outside of our house and if I have any energy left, maybe I will be able to scrape the popcorn off in our dining room and living room and paint in there. It would be cool to have an entirely spruced up outside and downstairs by next fall. Hopefully, the kids cooperate.

Other things I am looking forward to with the warmer weather: taking the kids down to the lake, taking the kids to the zoo, having dirty martinis on out screened porch with my husband, watching Logan getting to play with his favorite sprinkler in his backyard, planning our kids’ birthdays, enjoying Easter and spending more time with friends and family

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The Hart Home│9 Days…

Where we began…our little house by the ocean.

One of my goals for myself when I was in college was that I wanted to own my own home by the time I was 30. I also wanted to live at least a year completely by myself before I got married. Ultimately, both things came to be in my life. I lived a life as a single girl in my apartment in Bordentown, NJ for a year before I bought my first house at the shore a year later and made a huge commitment to my husband who at that time was only my boyfriend by moving in together.

Our engagement photos.Asbury Park, NJ 11/2016

Our home here always felt transitory for me. It is an hour away from my job, from my side of the family and from most of my friends. We bought it as a foreclosure with the idea that we would live here and build a life together before ultimately selling it. I was ready to sell it once we got engaged, but ultimately, we wound up staying three years into our marriage and two kids later.

Our Wedding Day. 11/2017

It worked out in the end for us though and I am so incredibly excited to be moving into our forever home in just 9 days. However, I am sad that we are leaving our little house by the ocean. We moved in here just as a boyfriend and a girlfriend when I was just starting my first PhD classes and from that, we got our first dog, then another dog, and then we got engaged. Then, we were married, and before we knew it Logan was here, I was graduating with my PhD and then, we had Rory. This is the home of our beginnings and as eager as I have been to leave it for our much nicer home in South Jersey, there is part of me that will miss this little house that we fixed up from the ground up.

Welcome Logan! Summer 2018

We’re leaving it now as a family of four with our tiny zoo. I am sad to see this chapter of our lives ending because in so many ways it felt like it just started. However, we’re trading in our life here to start a new one with a much easier commute for me and much more room for our boys…and who knows what kinds of surprises our new home will bring us. It is also exciting.

Hello Rory! Summer 2020.

The next 9 days will be bittersweet.

Our forever home.

Dr. Katherine Kuzma-Beck HartLeave a comment

The Hart Home│What They Don’t Tell You is That There Will Be No Time and So Much Poop

I took a little step back from blogging as much as I was to enjoy the first few weeks of summer vacation with my son. I have had such anxiety every day this year since I came back from maternity leave when I would leave him to go to work and it turns out, Logan was feeling the same way. We have been inseparable since I have been home. He just wants his mom and I just want my baby. I am sure I will write more about this in a future post.

Today, I wanted to share the story where I felt like I really became a mother. Outside of my anxiety of leaving my son every day, I also struggled with my identity as well. I have been working sometimes up to 7 days a week and doing a doctoral degree full time up until I had Logan. My interests and hobbies and friendships all took a back seat because I was working on paying for a wedding and then, finishing school. As I approached the end of that journey, I realized how far from myself I had come.

poop

While I know that my weekends at concerts and trips to music festivals and art shows are not going to dominate my life like they used to, I do know that I can have some of that back as I navigate my life as Logan’s mom. Time is just stretched so thin and it’s really of the essence more so than we get a lazy day of not doing much of anything. Time has sped up 1000% since Logan came home. I have to consciously make time for friendships or time doing other things outside of being a mom and a teacher. It took me several days to find the time to text one of my good friends that I haven’t spoken to in over a year. Just as we were catching up and updating each other about everything that we have going on, Logan went into the kitchen for a brief moment.

Now, I have been letting him toddle into the very baby proofed room and giving him a minute before I go after him. Well, in that minute my son pooped on the floor, peed on top of it and came back into the living room with a hand full of poop outstretched with the biggest smile on his face as if he were so proud to finally have figured out where his stinky diapers come from.

I immediately grabbed him and picked him up, holding his hand out away from me as the stink permeated the living room. I run to the kitchen and find the carnage. He smashed most of it and then the true horror came into view…we fed him corn last night with dinner. I wanted to puke.

I quickly get him up into a bath and changed into a fresh diaper and clothes. I run downstairs and throw the baby gate up to keep him out while I scrub the kitchen floor and made sure to find all of his corn kernels, gagging the entire time. He happily sat watching his cartoons like all was right with the world.

Kids man, why didn’t anyone warn me about the poop???

By the time I got back to my phone, my friend was off doing her thing and the conversation died. And there I sat in my living room with my de-pooped kid watching Simple Songs on YouTube until my husband came home laughing because I had texted him the entire poop saga.

I don’ think I can ever look at corn or my kid the same way again.

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The Hart Home│Are you fearful of another pregnancy?

My husband and I do not hide the fact that if God allows it, we would like to have four kids. I would like two of each because I think the idea of everyone having a brother and a sister. However, I really don’t care either way as long as I get one of each in this mix.

I was very blessed to conceive our son easily. I had been convinced that it would take us a while and that I would probably have fertility issues. After we visited our doctor, we were told to go home and try for a year before they intervened. I immediately hit the books and from there ordered my pre-natal vitamins and ovulation kits and downloaded a log to keep track of my cycles. I was determined. I also followed every forum and app on TTC I could find and read daily how and when in cycles women were actually conceiving.

meandlogan
One of our first pictures together. August 2018.

I was a bit obsessed, but deep within myself, I had always wanted to be a mother. However, I have also always been very career and academically driven and for years that was my sole focus. I laugh at myself now for thinking that I would go back to work a month after having delivered our son. I also laugh at a conversation that I had with my husband when we first started dating. I flat out told him that I would never give up my career or my dreams for any man nor would I move for one. Which is funny because, in the end, I moved for my husband so that he could finish school and now, I am constantly applying to jobs that I can do closer to home or even remotely so that I can be home with our son. My husband constantly likes to remind me about that conversation and how it’s so funny that this little man entered my life and I am just wrapped around his finger. And it’s true, Logan is the boss of my life now and if it doesn’t benefit him, I don’t do it. Everyone was floored when I took an actual spring break this year and have planned to do the same for summer. I haven’t actually had a true summer since I graduated from Rutgers. I can’t count my first summer with Phil because while backpacking through Europe was definitely a summer, it too was a lot of work. This will be the first summer where I will have no work, no deadlines just an endless amount of time with my baby.

Which has led us to the serious questions of when we want to expand our family again. Since we did not start our family when I was in my 20’s, I know that I do not have much time to finish building our family either. I think by 36, you’re already considered geriatric when it comes to pregnancy. It made me realize how scared I was to get pregnant again. With Logan, my pregnancy was uncomplicated other than being sick every day with him and in the end, I only gained 10 pounds and after deilvery, I wound up losing almost 50 within the first months of being home. My delivery was complicated. I was 42 weeks pregnant and induced for two days. We developed an infection on the morning of the 3rd day and I was rushed in for an emergency c-section where I got to meet the most perfect little boy.

We had 3 days together in the hospital and just as they were about to discharge me, my blood pressure shot through the roof and I was diagnosed with postpartum pre-eclampsia which affects 1 in 600 pregnancies. I had never even heard of that. I spent the next day being infused with magnesium sulfite and dealing with the craziest bunch of nurses I had ever dealt with. They had me on hefty drugs for the c-section, but when I developed a headache from lack of sleep, the magnesium and I am sure the overall stress, I had a nurse get into a fight with me over it. It was just such a whacky experience and we had driven 45 minutes to deliver at that hospital because in New Jersey it is known as THE baby hospital. I was so unimpressed. And the real kicker, the epidural? Didn’t even work! I felt it ALL.

I have been scared of and distant from my husband for months because I was terrified of going through all of that again. It’s taken me a while to even think that at some point I would like to have another baby to grow our family. I think this time though, I would find a midwife that specializes in VBAC and home birth because I never want to go through a c-section again nor do I want to deal with that hospital or any hospital for that matter unless I absolutely have to. I think all of the medical interventions that I believed in for my first pregnancy contributed to my difficult delivery and if God does bless us with another (or three more children), I definitely will not be repeating my first birth experience.

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